Product Description

Stephen Greenblatt sets out to explain his longtime fascination with the ghost of Hamlet's father, and his daring and ultimately gratifying journey takes him through surprising intellectual territory. It yields an extraordinary account of the rise and fall of Purgatory as both a belief and a lucrative institution--as well as a capacious new reading of the power of Hamlet.

In the mid-sixteenth century, English authorities abruptly changed the relationship between the living and dead. Declaring that Purgatory was a false "poem," they abolished the institutions and banned the practices that Christians relied on to ease the passage to Heaven for themselves and their dead loved ones. Greenblatt explores the fantastic adventure narratives, ghost stories, pilgrimages, and imagery by which a belief in a grisly "prison house of souls" had been shaped and reinforced in the Middle Ages. He probes the psychological benefits as well as the high costs of this belief and of its demolition.

With the doctrine of Purgatory and the elaborate practices that grew up around it, the church had provided a powerful method of negotiating with the dead. The Protestant attack on Purgatory destroyed this method for most people in England, but it did not eradicate the longings and fears that Catholic doctrine had for centuries focused and exploited. In his strikingly original interpretation, Greenblatt argues that the human desires to commune with, assist, and be rid of the dead were transformed by Shakespeare-consummate conjurer that he was-into the substance of several of his plays, above all the weirdly powerful Hamlet. Thus, the space of Purgatory became the stage haunted by literature's most famous ghost.

This book constitutes an extraordinary feat that could have been accomplished by only Stephen Greenblatt. It is at once a deeply satisfying reading of medieval religion, an innovative interpretation of the apparitions that trouble Shakespeare's tragic heroes, and an exploration of how a culture can be inhabited by its own spectral leftovers.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #233298 in Books
• Published on: 2002-08-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Greenblatt has made a name for himself both as a preeminent Shakespeare scholar and as one of the founders of the "New Historicist" approach to literary criticism. Central to his approach is the notion that not only does history affect literature, but literature itself informs history, a claim its critics have generally either pursued without conviction or nervously sought to evade. Greenblatt's newest work is a fine example of his method's considerable appeal; what could be a narrow treatise on the theme of purgatory in Hamlet rapidly unfolds into an absorbing investigation of religious persecution, spectral haunting and the memory of the dead. Purgatory, Greenblatt contends, occupied the center of theological warfare in Shakespeare's time, derided by Protestants as a cynical source of papal revenue (from pardons and indulgences), a baroque work of the Catholic imagination and a "poet's fable." Pursuing the purgatorial mind-set through its visual and textual incarnations, Greenblatt finds its suppressed traces in the form of medieval and Elizabethan ghost stories, theatrical works and dreams His increasingly occult investigation culminates in a compelling portrait of Shakespeare's Hamlet as a political, psychological, spiritual animal haunted by the ghost of his father and bearing a secret authorial agenda. Greenblatt's fascination with ghostly texts is contagious, and he is virtually unequaled among literary critics as a prose stylist. Though the book occasionally labors under the weight of its own evidence, it greatly succeeds in bringing alive the powerful complex of fear and longing Shakespeare so deftly deployed. Required reading for those who study Shakespeare, this graceful analysis should also give considerable pleasure to those who merely enjoy him. 8 color, 10 b&w illus.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review
Hamlet in Purgatory offers masterly accounts... of the importance of ghosts... in the whole range of Shakespeare's plays. -- Jonathan Bate, The Sunday Telegraph

A magisterial study containing impeccable scholarship, interesting narratives, incisive analyses of specific passages, cogent generalizations based upon a number of disciplines, seamless utilization of appropriate quotations, and, finally, a compelling sensitivity to the effects of literature on its past and present audiences. -- Review

Greenblatt's fascination with ghostly texts is contagious, and he is virtually unequaled among literary critics as a prose stylist... [Hamlet in Purgatory] greatly succeeds in bringing alive the powerful complex of fear and longing Shakespeare so deftly deployed. Required reading for those who study Shakespeare, this graceful analysis should also give considerable pleasure to those who merely enjoy him. Publishers Weekly Hamlet in Purgatory neither pretends to solve the mysteries of the play nor indulges in fruitless speculation about Shakespeare's own sectarian allegiances. Instead, it offers masterly accounts first of the history of the idea of Purgatory and its decline, then of the importance of ghosts and related apparitions in the whole range of Shakespeare's plays... Profoundly original. -- Jonathan Bate The Sunday Telegraph Greenblatt ... argues with great elegance and ingenuity ... [He] offers masterly accounts first of the history of the idea of Purgatory and its decline, then of the importance of ghosts and related apparitions in the whole range of Shakespeare's plays. -- Jonathan Bate Sunday Telegraph [A] highly instructive investigation of the role of spirits from the other world in Shakespeare. [Greenblatt's] writing here is poised, precise, and ... eloquent... Hamlet in Purgatory is an exemplary work of historically informed literary interpretation. -- Robert Alter New York Times Book Review A learned and persuasive book. -- John Bossy London Review of Books [An] astonishing work of historical reconstruction... [Greenblatt] has taken on the challenge of defamiliarizing the most famous play in Western literature by placing it in its proper theological setting... [W]hile he must definitely rank as the most influential and knowledgeable of all the New Historicists he now shows himself in this book as something more, much more. -- Edward T. Oakes Commonweal This is an interesting book on a grave matter ... We marvel that the author can make so much out of a slender theme, but it is the device of the good academic writer to make small amounts of material yield golden insights. -- Peter Ackroyd The Times of London Greenblatt's is not by any means nostalgic reading. The book gains its energy from an ongoing tension between the author's intellectual openness to apparently bizarre religious practices and his sharp skepticism... To have explicated new aspects of a play that has probably been more intensely studied than any other work of literature is a remarkable achievement that triumphantly vindicates the book's method... Enthralling reading... Greenblatt has offered genuinely new insights that make the familiar words seem strange and new, and that will speak powerfully to a new generation uneasy about its own unease with an earlier generation's religious beliefs. -- David Norbrook The New Republic Greenblatt reveals how Shakespeare turned the Anglican assault on the idea of purgatory as mere poetry into an indispensable poetic resource. In addition to this decisive repositioning of Hamlet's place in modern culture, Greenblatt provides extraordinary readings of little-know works... A major work of contemporary scholarship. Choice Greenblatt has shown beautifully what compellingly affective, even ethical, 'claims' Shakespeare's imaginary characters can make on modern readers, rewarding us with some of his liveliest and most original critical writing to date. -- Katherine Duncan-Jones Times Literary Supplement Greenblatt's mode of analysis has always been to leap the gulf between the early modern past and the present... Hamlet in Purgatory, his finest book in years, is a magnificent extended commentary on the otherness of the work in which Hamlet's father's ghost walked on stage. Greenblatt leaves it to us to find the spaces that it now haunts within the family or the world of politics, in the bedroom or on the battlements. -- Peter Holland New York Review of Books A magisterial study containing impeccable scholarship, interesting narratives, incisive analyses of specific passages, cogent generalizations based upon a number of disciplines, seamless utilization of appropriate quotations, and, finally, a compelling sensitivity to the effects of literature on its past and present audiences. -- Frank Ardolino Sixteenth Century Journal

[Greenblatt's] finest book in years, [Hamlet in Purgatory] is a magnificent extended commentary. -- Peter Holland, New York Review of Books

Review
Greenblatt's fascination with ghostly texts is contagious, and he is virtually unequaled among literary critics as a prose stylist. . . . [Hamlet in Purgatory] greatly succeeds in bringing alive the powerful complex of fear and longing Shakespeare so deftly deployed. Required reading for those who study Shakespeare, this graceful analysis should also give considerable pleasure to those who merely enjoy him.
(Publishers Weekly )

Hamlet in Purgatory neither pretends to solve the mysteries of the play nor indulges in fruitless speculation about Shakespeare's own sectarian allegiances. Instead, it offers masterly accounts first of the history of the idea of Purgatory and its decline, then of the importance of ghosts and related apparitions in the whole range of Shakespeare's plays. . . . Profoundly original.
(Jonathan Bate The Sunday Telegraph )

Greenblatt . . . argues with great elegance and ingenuity . . . [He] offers masterly accounts first of the history of the idea of Purgatory and its decline, then of the importance of ghosts and related apparitions in the whole range of Shakespeare's plays.
(Jonathan Bate Sunday Telegraph )

[A] highly instructive investigation of the role of spirits from the other world in Shakespeare. [Greenblatt's] writing here is poised, precise, and . . . eloquent. . . . Hamlet in Purgatory is an exemplary work of historically informed literary interpretation.
(Robert Alter New York Times Book Review )

A learned and persuasive book.
(John Bossy London Review of Books )

[An] astonishing work of historical reconstruction. . . . [Greenblatt] has taken on the challenge of defamiliarizing the most famous play in Western literature by placing it in its proper theological setting. . . . [W]hile he must definitely rank as the most influential and knowledgeable of all the New Historicists he now shows himself in this book as something more, much more.
(Edward T. Oakes Commonweal )

This is an interesting book on a grave matter . . . We marvel that the author can make so much out of a slender theme, but it is the device of the good academic writer to make small amounts of material yield golden insights.
(Peter Ackroyd The Times of London )

Greenblatt's is not by any means nostalgic reading. The book gains its energy from an ongoing tension between the author's intellectual openness to apparently bizarre religious practices and his sharp skepticism. . . . To have explicated new aspects of a play that has probably been more intensely studied than any other work of literature is a remarkable achievement that triumphantly vindicates the book's method. . . . Enthralling reading. . . . Greenblatt has offered genuinely new insights that make the familiar words seem strange and new, and that will speak powerfully to a new generation uneasy about its own unease with an earlier generation's religious beliefs.
(David Norbrook The New Republic )

Greenblatt reveals how Shakespeare turned the Anglican assault on the idea of purgatory as mere poetry into an indispensable poetic resource. In addition to this decisive repositioning of Hamlet's place in modern culture, Greenblatt provides extraordinary readings of little-know works. . . . A major work of contemporary scholarship.
(Choice )

Greenblatt has shown beautifully what compellingly affective, even ethical, 'claims' Shakespeare's imaginary characters can make on modern readers, rewarding us with some of his liveliest and most original critical writing to date.
(Katherine Duncan-Jones Times Literary Supplement )

Greenblatt's mode of analysis has always been to leap the gulf between the early modern past and the present. . . . Hamlet in Purgatory, his finest book in years, is a magnificent extended commentary on the otherness of the work in which Hamlet's father's ghost walked on stage. Greenblatt leaves it to us to find the spaces that it now haunts within the family or the world of politics, in the bedroom or on the battlements.
(Peter Holland New York Review of Books )

A magisterial study containing impeccable scholarship, interesting narratives, incisive analyses of specific passages, cogent generalizations based upon a number of disciplines, seamless utilization of appropriate quotations, and, finally, a compelling sensitivity to the effects of literature on its past and present audiences.
(Frank Ardolino Sixteenth Century Journal )

Customer Reviews

Who's there?

An exhaustive investigation about the role of spirits from the other world mirrors the otherness regarded as the unknown wasteland of the human soul. I guess this passionate, interesting and eloquent study will absorb all your interest, taking into account we are talking the greatest Western playwright ever born, since the Greek tragic playwrights.

It depends on what you're looking for
As an unique insight into Elizabethan culture, it's fascinating. As an analysis of Hamlet, it's lacking. Many of his points are unsupported by textual evidence and much of his excellent historical information unconnected to the play itself. Nonetheless, I would recommend this book to anyone with a love of Shakespeare that goes beyond the word and into the period as it is a great read.

Superb Writing and Scholarship
This is an excellent book--excellent scholarship. I highly recommend it to anyone generally interested in medieval and Elizabethan accounts on purgatory, or to those who have an interest in Shakepeare studies. Even for those who don't, this is an excellent book, and my interest in it grew with every turn of the page. It is rich and well-written.

Chapter Two: "Imagining Purgatory" discusses various philosophical and medieval connections (via manuscripts) to Shakespeare's texts (also see the classic, "The Medieval Heritage of Elizabethan Tragedy"). Chapter Three: "The Flights of Memory" (oddly enough, also see Derrida's The Gift of Death/U Chicago Press, Staten's Eros in Mourning, Derrida's The Work of Mourning, and E. Scarry's Body in Pain) is highly interesting material on the poetics of pain and suffering. Chapter Five: "Remember Me" is brilliant (also see Derrida/Levinas on the 'adieu' issue--U of Chicago and Stanford UP titles).

Also see: Fish, How Milton Works (Harvard UP); Williams, Truth and Truthfulness (Princeton UP); Staten, Eros in Mourning (Johns Hopkins). I also recommend Robert Bell's dissertation on the harrowing of hell (English/U of Maryland/CSULB Emeritus).